The updated League Rules for the 2026/27 season have been approved by the County Committee, and are available via the Rules link under 'General' on the homepage.

Please familiarise yourselves with the rule updates. The only significant changes are:

• Previous rules 4.9 & 4.10 deleted: The Committee has decided (following a strong steer from the member clubs) to scrap the rules which allowed the option of "parallel" teams in the Men's Premier and Ladies' Division 1 (1A, 1B, etc), in favour of teams playing in hierarchical order (1, 2, etc). This rule change affects Northumberland Club who will play as Northumberland 1, 2 and 3, and Northern who will play as Northern 1 and 2. Similarly there will be no "parallel" teams in Ladies' Division 1.
• Rule 5.5 updated: Northern Juniors play in the Men’s League as a separate squad from the Northern Senior teams. Only junior players may be nominated for Northern Juniors, which is regarded as a separate club within the overall Northern club. To aid their development, these junior players may now also play up to three matches per half for Northern Senior teams (and must play in their correct nominated order for those teams) whilst continuing to represent Juniors.

Also a reminder of Rules 4.4 & 4.5 which state that nominations (at the start of each half) should be in strict order of merit; I will refer to Squash Levels as a guide, but will allow some limited flexibility to recognise clubs' assertions about playing order.

Joe Witherspoon (League Secretary)

northumbriasquashleagues@gmail.com